Big Love
Directed by Emily Scott Banks
Produced by Hip Pocket Theatre
Audience rating: R for mature audience members. Features onstage intimacy and violence, adult language, as well as references to sexual violence and torture.
Running Time: 90 minutes (no intermission)
Accessible Seating: Available
Hearing Devices: Not available
Sensory Friendly Showing: Not available
ASL Showing: Not available
Sound Level: Comfortable
Noises or Visuals to Prepare for: depictions of fighting, torture and sexual violence.
Reviewed by Stacey Calvert
Just walked away from the altar and sailed away from Greece.
- Giuliano, Big Love
Occasionally, I go to the theater and as I’m watching the performance, I know something special, something almost magical is happening right before my eyes. And when the show is over and the lights come up, I feel this overwhelming sense of gratitude that I was there to witness this magic. That’s how I felt on seeing Big Love at Hip Pocket Theatre in Fort Worth on Sunday night. Emily Scott Banks’ rendering of Charles Mee’s play is classical, avant-garde, soapy, sexy, funny, and radically experimental all at the same time. It explores ancient themes and makes them relevant to modern times.
Mee’s play is based on what is thought to be the earliest play of Western civilization, The Suppliants by Aeschylus, which tells the story of fifty brides fleeing marriage to their cousins and taking violent action to avoid their fate. In this modern retelling, the brides, represented by the three sisters Lydia (Gabriela Yarbrough), Thyona (Amanda Reyes), and Olympia (Lauren Riley) seek refuge at an Italian villa on the coast after fleeing Greece by boat. Although they beg for asylum and threaten drastic action if forced to go through with the wedding, various members of the Italian family try to convince them to marry. This is done in the interest of keeping the peace, reinforcing gender roles, and maybe a desire not to spoil what promises to be a good party (with cake!). When the would-be grooms show up via helicopter to claim their renegade brides, all hell breaks loose.
The play opens with sister Lydia (Yarbrough) arriving at the villa, bedraggled and exhausted. She slips off her wedding gown and sits in a bathtub on the terrace outside the villa, giving in to her sadness and overwhelm. Eventually her two sisters Olympia (Riley) and Thyona (Reyes) join her, dragging their possessions with them. The three women, who serve as a proxy for the other 47 brides who remain mostly unseen, represent common female archetypes: the militant feminist Thyona (played with snarling, uncompromising rage by Reyes); the product-obsessed princess Olympia, looking for a prince to take care of her (played by Riley with confident comic flair); and Lydia, the wide-eyed romantic with an independent streak (played sensitively by the luminous Yarbrough).
The brides meet members of the Italian family occupying the villa one by one: first the sweet, gentle Giuliano (Tyler Dorney), then pragmatic Bella (Melinda Wood Allen), the matriarch, then Piero (James Warila), the head of the family. When Piero denies the brides asylum, the family begins to prepare for the wedding celebration over the brides’ objections. Eventually, three grooms show up and give us their perspectives, representing male archetypes: the macho men’s rights activist Constantine (Ron Fernandez), oafish dude-bro Oed (Cameron Martinez), and the sweetly sensitive Nikos (Ash Vance, whose shell-shocked facial expression in the final scene is hilarious).
The physicality of the play was unexpected and exciting, interspersing quiet, text-heavy moments or musical interludes with the hurling of shoes and luggage, silver platters, and splatting tomatoes. Characters groan and grunt, rappel, throw themselves to the ground, and tear at their clothing and hair. Others dance lustily or romantically while reciting what feels like poetry (shoutout to Aaron Knowles Dias as Eleanor - I could not take my eyes off her!). And that’s all before the real action begins! I won’t spoil what happens, but trust me when I say Intimacy Coordinator Harper Lee and Fight Captain Ash Vance definitely had their hands full!
In addition to the surefooted direction and overall high quality of the production values, the actors, to a person, were outstanding. I could hear everything. I understood everything. They fully committed to the big emotions being expressed and the physical acts of heartache, frustration, and rage required of them. I am convinced I felt everything the playwright set out to make the audience feel. Banks did a masterful job of tracing the arc of the play, making sense of senseless violence and leaving us with a sense of peace, courtesy of the lyrical musings of daydreamer Giuliano and his grandmother Bella. The show is called Big Love, and in some ways that refers to a large wedding with multiple brides and grooms. But more importantly, it refers to the small things that make up love. As Giuliano and Bella tell us, it’s the beauty found in a linen handkerchief, or a shaft of sunlight, or the hum of insects, or the tiny tragedy of the death of a mouse.
If you’ve never been to Hip Pocket Theatre, do yourself a favor and make the drive out west of Fort Worth to spend the night under the stars, seeing incredible theater. You’ll be glad you did. Big Love Runs through September 29.
On With the Show!
Stacey
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